The documentary focuses on the debuts of many young dancers from the Royal Ballet School who make up a troupe of toy soldiers, as well as dancers recently promoted to the Company’s highest rank of Principal, including those preparing to dance the iconic role of the Sugar Plum Fairy. The part, performed by some of the Company’s most famous former Principals, Margot Fonteyn and Darcey Bussell, is one of the most technically challenging roles in the repertory.

The documentary filmmakers followed The Royal Ballet and The Royal Ballet School closely for three months, capturing a wonderful glimpse into the classic production.

Each window of the mock-Tudor building will be inspired by a different moment of The Royal Ballet’s classic Christmas ballet.

If you find yourself on Regent Street for this year’s Christmas shopping, make sure you take a look at the windows – the ballet-themed displays are due to be installed at the end of October and will be unveiled on 6 November 2016.

Be sure to follow our Twitter and Instagram accounts for more updates about The Nutcracker takeover at Liberty.

Later this month, The Royal Ballet head to Japan for their annual international tour.

From 16 June to 7 July 2016, the Company will visit several venues to delight Japanese fans, beginning the tour in the capital city Tokyo before making their way to a further four cities: Fukuoka, Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuyama.

Ahead of the tour, Principals of the Royal Ballet Lauren Cuthbertson and Federico Bonelli recorded messages to Japanese audiences. Cuthertson said she was 'really looking forward to being in Japan again to perform for such a warm audience.' Bonelli revealed he was excited to visit the country because 'my wife is Japanese and we're bringing our daughter there for the first time.' Watch both films here.

Speaking of the Company’s return, Director of The Royal Ballet Kevin O’Hare said:

‘Touring to Japan is always a highlight for the Company, the audiences are so warm and receptive and I'm delighted that this summer we'll present two masterpieces from The Royal Ballet repertory Romeo and Juliet and Giselle, showcasing the breadth, artistry and talent of our world-class dancers.’

Peter Wright’s production of Giselle is a jewel in The Royal Ballet’s repertory. Wright’s extensive research into the performance history of this quintessential Romantic ballet led to an interpretation that not only redresses the importance of mime but also re-evaluates the motivations of the main characters. He spoke about the production to Mark Monahan, dance critic of the Daily Telegraph.

Would it be fair to say that Giselle occupies a special place in your heart?

Yes. It was the first full-length existing classic I ever produced and I have done it so many times – 15 in fact, worldwide!

When I first saw Giselle way back in the early 1940s I used to think: ‘That’s silly. That doesn’t make sense.’ The ballet always seemed rather inconsistent to me and sometimes downright stupid. It was only when I saw the great Russian ballerina Galina Ulanova’s interpretation of the title role when the Bolshoi first came to London in 1956 that I realized what an extraordinary work it could be. So I did it. Cranko gave me six weeks to research the ballet, and the more I discovered, the more excited I became.

Was that Bolshoi production very different from what you’d seen before?

One thing I should say about Giselle, choreographically, is that most of Act II is complete – it’s been handed down extraordinarily intact across the ages. At the time of the Bolshoi’s first visit, there had been no communication between Russia and Great Britain in the dance world at all, but the basic shape of their choreography was remarkably similar to ours – the only difference was characterization.

You’ve said in the past that the great appeal of Giselle for you is its story...

The important thing is to make the story and the characters believable. I am insistent that Giselle actually kills herself as in the original production, which is why she is buried in unhallowed ground, unprotected from the evil Wilis. It states very clearly in one account of the first performance that ‘Carlotta Grisi, as Giselle, takes Albrecht’s sword, plunges it into her heart and dies’.

What other specifics is it vital to address?

It should be quite understandable for Albrecht to want to get away from his artificial and rigid life at the palace. He starts out just looking for a good time but finds Giselle to be rather amusing. Soon, he realizes he has completely fallen in love with her. She, on the other hand, is totally infatuated by him, so that when he is unmasked she loses her reason and, in a state of shock, kills herself.

Hilarion is often portrayed as a baddie whereas, in fact, the story works much better if he is the tough guy of the village who would have been the obvious future husband for Giselle if Albrecht had not appeared on the scene. Poor man, it’s very unfair. He has a good heart, and, to my mind, he genuinely loves Giselle. But it is he who, in the end, suffers at the hand of the Wilis.

To audiences, that contrast between Acts I and II of Giselle is one of the most striking and alluring aspects of the ballet. Is this also true for you as a producer?

Absolutely. The first act is about flesh and blood, peasants, aristocrats and social class. Then in the second act there’s a complete change to the world of the supernatural, where love finally transcends death. It is all based on classical ballet but danced in completely different styles – a great challenge that can be supremely rewarding for both the dancers and the audience.

This is an edited extract for Mark Monahan’s interview ‘The Romance of a Lifetime’, available to read in full in The Royal Ballet’s programme book forGiselle.

Giselle runs 26 February–15 April 2016. Tickets are sold out, but returns may become available and there are 44 day tickets for each performance.

Peter Wright’s Giselle, drawing closely on Coralli and Perrot’s original 1841 ballet, is filled with energetic, bravura dancing. The heroine in Act I is a bundle of youthful enthusiasm, eager to show off her dazzling steps at any opportunity. Her first appearance in Act II is another brilliant, ferocious display. There is also the small matter of the dance forced upon Hilarion by the Wilis (spirits of women deceived by their lovers) in Act II, which is so energetic that it leads to his death. But the emotional climax of this ballet is a pas de deux characterized by its breathtaking stillness. It begins with Giselle rooted to the spot – the polar opposite of the pyrotechnics that surround it.

Deep in the forest, Albrecht has come to pay his respects at Giselle’s grave, guilt-ridden at having brought about her suicide by his deception. He is suddenly ensnared by the ethereal Wilis, the spirits of jilted women who exact revenge on any man who crosses their path by forcing him to dance to his death. Giselle has become one of them, bound by the circumstances of her death. However, once Myrtha, the Queen of the Wilis, commands Albrecht to begin his deathly dance, Giselle intervenes. And although what follows is a pas de deux, Giselle begins it very much on her own.

To the soft strains of a solo viola, Giselle brings her right leg up in développé and turns in arabesque – all with glacial slowness. Even with her one jump, and its fleeting entrechat quatre, she stays on the same spot, seeming trapped, unable to escape. This mirrors her situation: her ‘unholy’ death by suicide has denied her a Christian burial, and her continued desire to help Albrecht alienates her from the Wilis – she is now truly alone. When she does move, running pleadingly towards the ranks of Wilis on either side of the stage, they coolly shun her: all that is left for her now is an unhallowed grave.

As the woodwinds join the viola, Albrecht now joins Giselle, supporting her through sorrowful lifts and turns, filled with remorse at the fate of the peasant girl he cast aside. At the tender conclusion of this adage Giselle places a consoling hand on Albrecht’s shoulder, a final act of forgiveness that she grants despite her own fate already having been sealed.

Albrecht is at last forced to begin his dance for the Wilis as the pas de deux reaches its coda – but Giselle’s interventions have delayed it so long that dawn arrives, forcing the Wilis to retreat into the shadows. He survives, thanks only to the love of Giselle, faithful even in death. As the curtain falls we see Albrecht wracked with guilt – but the character who might better draw our sympathy is already dead.

Giselle runs 26 February–15 April 2016. Tickets are sold out, but returns may become available and there are 44 day tickets for each performance.

Meet Anna Rose as she gets off the tube at Covent Garden and follow her through stage door for a sneak peek at the ROH's backstage areas.

‘The Opera House is a bit of a maze because the backstage area holds the sets of so many productions. To walk through it every day is quite incredible in itself.’

Anna Rose makes her debut this Season as Clara in Peter Wright’s The Nutcracker – the young girl who is given a nutcracker on Christmas Eve by a mysterious magician, Drosselmeyer. The doll comes to life and Clara is transported on a magical adventure to defeat the wicked Mouse King.

Clara remains on stage for most of the two-hour ballet, which includes an amazing display of dances from the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Kingdom of Sweets.

Levitating children, on-stage explosions, astonishing magic tricks and a spectacular, growing Christmas tree – The Nutcracker is packed full of remarkable illusions and special effects. Among all of this wizardry, much of which relies on extensive behind-the scenes technical preparation, one of the ballet’s most magical scenes is in fact its simplest: the moment at the end of Act I when Clara and Hans-Peter find themselves whisked away to an enchanted land and snow begins to fall.

The Waltz of the Snowflakes, as it has become known, was one of the most accomplished and best-loved scenes in Lev Ivanov’s original 1892 production of The Nutcracker. However, the ballet had a troubled inception – proving largely unpopular among audiences and critics – and its choreography, including that for the snowflakes, was consequently replaced over the years. When Peter Wright created his 1984 production of The Nutcracker for The Royal Ballet, he decided to incorporate what remains of the original Waltz. With the help of Professor Roland John Wiley, he used his own steps to reconstruct the floor patterns danced by Ivanov’s female corps de ballet, forming his own version of this glittering snowstorm.

The snowflakes start to fall to the fluttering of Tchaikovsky’s flutes, drifting onto stage with lightning-quick runs and dainty pas de chats into arabesque before disappearing. The magician Drosselmeyer intends to show his guests, the young Clara and Hans-Peter, the magic of a white Christmas. He sweeps his arms overhead and, with a glimmer of his fingers, whips up a storm. The snowflake corps begin to blow on in gusts, bourréeing and balancéing in small groups until the stage is filled with a shimmering flurry of white.

Clara and Hans-Peter appear during a lull in the blizzard, as the corps women kneel to the floor – sweeping their arms in synchronized ports de bras with twinkling fingers – and a distant choir begins to sing. The couple dance together, he spinning her in pirouettes, whipping her round in arabesque and lifting her into the air as she floats and skips through the snow. Then the wind picks up again and the snowflakes rise to form three circles, one of which surrounds the pair.

As Clara and Hans-Peter continue to dance, the women move in and out of groups and constellations that recall both flurries of snow being buffeted about by squally winds, and the intricate, geometric structures of snowflakes. Here, just as described by a fan of Ivanov’s original Nutcracker, ‘the hachures and patterns of snow crystals, the monograms and arabesques of the plastique of frost [gather] into one well-proportioned, artistically finished vision’. The music builds and the women come together to form a wheel, like the crystals of a giant snowflake. Clara and Hans-Peter link hands with them as they spin round the stage, swept along by a series of fleet ballonnés and petits jetés.

Once again, it seems as if the wind dips momentarily before lifting again – this time blowing a real gale. Violins chatter and cymbals crash as the snowflakes are whipped about, their ballonnés, posé turns and grands jetés en avant appearing to be driven by strong gusts as glittering flakes of snow begin to fall from above the stage.

At last, the storm begins to die down. Hans-Peter takes Clara’s hand and they walk through the drifting snowflakes – mirroring the corps’ gently wafting ports de bras – to meet Drosselmeyer. The magician summons his magical carriage, driven by an angel, and helps the couple on board. As he sends them off to continue their journey, the snowflakes bourée into shimmering lines before settling at last as the curtain falls.

The Nutcrackerruns from 23 November 2016 –12 January 2017. Tickets are still available.

The production is supported is given with generous philanthropic support from Hans and Julia Rausing, Peter Lloyd and the Friends of Covent Garden.

Tutus, tiaras, pirouettes and pas de deux – that’s what ballerinas are made of. Or are they? Alongside the fairies, princesses and girlish heroines stand another group of women who defy the mould. Encompassing parts that range from protective mothers to powerful sorceresses, these so-called ‘character roles’ make use of acting and mime in addition to dance. And they’re often as vital to the drama of a narrative ballet as that decorated leading lady.

At The Royal Ballet, most character roles are undertaken by Character Artists. These dancers tend to have performed with the Company for several years and risen through the ranks. They therefore bring to their roles an understanding of the movement and characterization inherent to classical ballet – Genesia Rosato, one of the Company’s current Principal Character Artists, explains that performing character parts is ‘just an extension of what we have been taught classically’. However, without the technical framework of a fully danced role to fall back on, these performers must go beyond choreographed steps to create convincing personas – they must, as Rosato explains, have ‘a natural feeling for acting’.

Dancers with a flair for acting and mime in fact often take on character parts relatively early in their careers, watching and learning from those who have experience of performing the roles. This tradition is particularly strong within The Royal Ballet; Rosato describes how she was ‘taught in my early days in the Company by Julia Farron, Gerd Larsen and Derek Rencher, who nurtured my dramatic tendencies’. Fellow Principal Character Artist Elizabeth McGorian remembers her training in mime with Anthony Dowell – ‘a stickler for detail but never afraid to update it or experiment with it’ – and Peter Wright, ‘who knows everything there is to know about classical mime and is such a perfectionist’.

Christina Arestis – a current Royal Ballet Soloist who performs both dance and character parts – draws on her training to immerse herself in a particular role: ‘Monica Mason once said to me, the most important thing when approaching any role is first to consider how that particular character would walk. That is always my starting point. Once you have established that, you can start to build the layers of your character from there.’

Of the many choreographers who include character roles in their narrative ballets, Kenneth MacMillan is particularly revered for the imaginative, complex personalities he created. For McGorian, ‘MacMillan was the master. Character roles were such an intrinsic part of all his story ballets and he was groundbreaking with the way he made the storytelling so naturalistic’. She names Lady Capulet from MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet as her favourite role, ‘not least because of the heartbreaking, gut-wrenching reaction she has to her nephew Tybalt’s death… the build up to that scene and performing it leave me emotionally and physically shattered’.

The female character artist’s repertory includes a number of other powerful mother figures: Berthe in Giselle and the Princess in Swan Lake are each complex characters, caring for their children but powerless to avert disaster. Though less prominent, the dignified presence of Madame Larina in Onegin provides valuable background detail for the behaviour of her two very different daughters. But character artists are by no means restricted to depictions of maternal love. The plethora of women they portray range from glamorous, independent figures such as Madame in Manon to the demented, knife-wielding young cook in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. They can be some of ballets most famous baddies – the wicked fairy godmother Carabosse in The Sleeping Beauty and the witch Madge in La Sylphide.

None of these characters conform to the stereotype of a ballerina. But without them, and the skilled dance-actors who bring them to life, ballet’s most famous stories could not be told.

The Royal Ballet's Giselle was screened live across the world on 27 January as part of our Live Cinema Season 2013/14. During the relay a series of backstage films were shown, featuring rehearsal footage and interviews with the cast and creative team. In case you missed them last night, or just want to find out more about Giselle, here they are again:

Corps de ballet rehearsals for Giselle

Follow the corps de ballet as they rehearse for Giselle with Ballet Mistress Samantha Raine. The corps play the Wilis - girls who've died of a broken heart. First Artist Nathalie Harrison and Annette Buvoli, the Company's youngest dancer at 18, explain the complexities and challenges of the scenes involving the corps.